Review: The Plumberry School of Comfort Food – Part 1

About the book

This is Part One in a brand-new serial from bestselling author Cathy Bramley.

Verity Bloom hasn’t been interested in cooking anything more complicated than the perfect fish finger sandwich, ever since she lost her best friend and baking companion two years ago.

But an opportunity to help a friend is about to land her right back in the heart of the kitchen! The Plumberry School of Comfort Food is due to open in a few weeks’ time and has rather gone off the boil. It needs the kind of great ideas that only Verity could cook up . . .

But as Verity tries to balance stirring up publicity, keeping their top chef sweet and soothing her aching heart, will her move to Plumberry prove to be a sheer delight . . . or a recipe for disaster?

The Plumberry School of Comfort Food is an irresistibly charming novel told in four parts – following the adventures of Verity Bloom in love, friendship and cooking. This is the first part.

My Review

Wow!! Upon finishing this first part of The Plumberry School of Comfort Food I immediately headed over to Amazon and purchased the next 3 instalments as I need to find out what happens and immerse myself in the wonderful village that is Plumberry!

This is the first book I have read from Cathy Bramley and most certainly will not be the last, her writing style is so easy and makes you feel as though you are there with the characters.

Verity is feeling lost, it is 2 years since the sudden death of her best friend, Mimi, and she has still not come to terms with the hole that has been left by Mimi’s absence. One thing that Mimi and Verity enjoyed doing together was baking and since Mimi’s death, Verity has not been able to enjoy being in the kitchen so lives on a diet of ready meals and toast! Mimi’s husband, Gabe, and 3 year old son, Noah are just about coping, Gabe has adapted his life to heal and look after Noah as a single parent but is still bereft at the loss of Mimi and incredibly lonely.

Verity is living with Rosie and is about to make a pitch at work to save herself from redundancy but all does not go to plan so Verity heads north to Plumberry to help Gloria, Mimi’s mother, with the opening of her new cookery school where she meets the enigmatic but grumpy Tom.

The flow of this book is wonderful, I quickly lost myself in this first part and did not stop until I had finished it. The characters are wonderful (other than those you are not supposed to like!) and I particularly loved Verity and Rosie. I warmed to them both from the outset, they feel like girls you could go and have a good chat with over copious amounts of coffee and cake!

Aside from the characters, Bramley’s Plumberry sounds wonderful, the sort of village where everyone knows everyone else…but in a good way, all supporting and looking out for one another.

One warning is needed for this book, do not read it when you are hungry because you will be drooling throughout it – the descriptions of the cooking and food are so brilliant you can almost taste the results!

The Plumberry School of Comfort Food is available either as the four novellas or as a collection.

I’ll soon have my reviews of the following 3 novella’s on the blog.

About the author (courtesy of Amazon)

Cathy Bramley is the author of the best-selling romantic comedies Ivy Lane, Appleby Farm, Wickham Hall, Conditional Love and The Plumberry School of Comfort Food. She lives in a Nottinghamshire village with her family and a dog.

Her recent career as a full-time writer of light-hearted, romantic fiction has come as somewhat of a lovely surprise after spending eighteen years running her own marketing agency. However, she has been always an avid reader, never without a book on the go and now thinks she may have found her dream job!